Success Neg

Nathaniel and I negate: “Resolved: On balance, the current Authorization for Use of
Military Force gives too much power to the president.”
Framework
 Our framework is a cost-benefit analysis.
Merriam Webster defines too much as “to such a degree as to be regrettable.” Given
that this resolution states “on balance,” using a cost-benefit analysis is the best way to
evaluate whether the AUMF gives the president too much power.
Merriam Webster, 3-7-2018, "Definition of TOO," Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/too

a : to an excessive degree : excessively too large a house for us b : to such a degree as to be regrettable this time he has gone too far c : very didn't seem too interested

This means that if, on balance, the positives of the AUMF’s power outweigh the
negatives, the con will win the debate.
Our sole contention is making interventions
successful.
 UQ: intervention inevitable
The Huffington Post explains that the US is always intervening, concluding that the
blueprint for today’s foreign policy is perpetual war.
Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani, 8-10-2014, "Why Does the U.S. Keep Getting Involved in Conflict?," HuffPost, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-tehrani/why-does-the-us-keep-getting-involved_b_5666898.html

Ukraine. Gaza. Syria. Yemen. Pakistan. If it feels like the United States is always at war somewhere, that’s because it is. Not just Iraq and Afghanistan - the two wars we all know about. And, granted, we’re not only talking boots
on the ground. It’s our money, our weapons and - more often in recent weeks - our Secretary of State, engaged in high-stakes diplomacy to uneven results. At his last count, investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola put the U.S. war
count at 74. These are mostly unannounced and undeclared wars against enemies that have different aspirations, strategies and ideologies. Why? The official line varies. Some conflict engagement is, we’re told, about nation-
building (Iraq and Afghanistan.) Other operations are to remove a despotic ruler (Syria, Libya.) Some engagement is designed to pick off a terror group/groups (Oman, Pakistan, Yemen) and/or to spread “true” democracy (Iraq and
Afghanistan, again.) There are wars we engage in to free people from a cycle of fear (Central African Republic) to stem the flow of hundreds-year-old bloodletting (Israel/Palestine) and to keep old foes in check (Ukraine/Russia).
“Perpetual war for perpetual peace,” is how historian Charles Beard described the national security doctrine of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and it largely remains the blueprint for U.S. foreign policy today. HuffPost Live
looked at the reasons why last week in “Always At War,” a three-part series I hosted focusing on the current violence between Israel and Palestinian forces, the psychology and policies surrounding 9/11, and the military industrial
complex that underpins U.S. warfare.

In either world, we’re seeing the same interventions. This is because of the president’s
inherent power.
This is what leads Micah Zenko of Foreign Policy to conclude in 2017 that the existence
or non-existence of the AUMF has zero effect on the president using force against
anyone.
Micah Zenko, 7-13-2017, "Congress Will Rubber-Stamp Whatever War Powers Donald Trump Wants," Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/13/congress-will-rubber-stamp-whatever-war-powers-donald-trump-wants/

My brilliant colleague Rosa Brooks described the AUMF debates perfectly in 2015: “I’ll let you in on a little secret: notwithstanding the word ‘authorize,’ the existence or non-existence of a new AUMF will have essentially zero
effect on whether the president feels empowered to bring force against [the Islamic State] or anyone else.” If Congress were truly interested in conducting rigorous oversight of ongoing military activities, it could begin doing
so today. However, congressional hearings focus almost exclusively on members asking Pentagon officials if they need to buy more weapons produced in that member’s district or just thanking them for their service.

We see that the US will intervene whether or not the AUMF exists. The only difference
is how those interventions are conducted, or how effective the inevitable
interventions are going to be.
The AUMF makes interventions comparatively better. There are x key impacts.
Asha Sanaker of Countable explains that since WWII, the US has moved towards using
the AUMF instead of a declaration of war, in order to pursue military objectives.
Asha Sanaker, 8-7-2017, "What Is An AUMF and Does The President Need One?," Countable, https://www.countable.us/articles/366-aumf-does-president-need

Since WWII the U.S. has used the AUMF as opposed to a declaration of war to empower presidents to pursue large military objectives. A declaration of war legally empowers the executive branch in a variety of ways, while an
AUMF usually has more specific parameters and boundaries: "A ‘declaration of war’ has always been a specific policy tool -- a blunt one, and one that many presidents, and Congresses, have chosen not to use. ‘Authorizations,’ by
contrast, permit the two branches to agree on limited war aims. An authorization can lapse without a formal surrender; it can permit military action short of total war."
 Impact x is deterring an attack
Kosnik of Harvard explains that use of military force sets a precedent that terrorism
won’t go unpunished. He concludes that the use of military force demonstrates a
commitment by the US in order to deter terrorist attacks.
Mark E. Kosnik, 5-1999, " AN ANALYSIS OF THE UNITED STATES USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST TERRORISM," Harvard,
file:///C:/Users/ndy15/OneDrive/Desktop/pdfs/compare/use%20of%20military%20force%20against%20terrorism.pdf

The second major way in which military force contributes to the U.S. counterterrorism strategy is by establishing the precedent that terrorism, particularly if it is prolonged, extreme, or
threatening to U.S. interests, will not go unpunished. In each of the case studies, U.S. policymakers used military force as the means to demonstrate that there were limits to U.S. tolerance of
terrorism. It may not be wise or practical for the U.S. to use force against every terrorist threat, but it can serve as a powerful tool when a terrorist threatens to get out of control. The
psychological deterrence of such a message may be difficult to quantify, but more than any other player on the world stage, the terrorist understands the significance of force. In this sense,
the use of military force demonstrates a determined commitment by the U.S. to use the strongest means available to limit terrorism. Perhaps most importantly this commitment is
conveyed to the terrorist through a means that reinforces the depth of the commitment.
 Impact x is cutting off financing.
The Financial Action Task Force writes in 2014 that narcotics profits, specifically from
opium, have become a major source of income for terrorist organizations, continuing
that they directly translate to their ability to conduct attacks.
Financial Action Task Force, 6-2014, " Financial flows linked to the production and trafficking of Afghan opiates," Financial Action Task Force, http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/Financial-flows-linked-to-
production-and-trafficking-of-afghan-opiates.pdf

The multi-million dollar profits of narcotics trafficking networks have been seen to have leaked into the funds of terrorist networks. In the case of the Afghan Taliban and PKK, drug profits clearly provide a significant increase in
their income and this can be directly translated into an increase in their ability to conduct lethal attacks and shadow governance activities. The shared use of gatekeepers may provide investigators from a range of agencies with
opportunities to gather information regarding these various networks. This also may provide Law Enforcement Agencies and Regulators with opportunities to conduct shared disruptions against several networks of both terrorist
and narcotics traffickers. The cooperation between terrorist and narcotics traffickers may provide added incentive and opportunities for inter-agency and international collaboration to disrupt common threats. The topic of co-
existence of terrorist and criminal networks, how they cooperate and in some cases act as “force-multipliers” for each other, may benefit from further research. This may assist the development of more accurate National Risk
Assessments and consequent action to reduce the threat they pose.

To raise money, the Taliban runs a sophisticated protection racket for poppy farmers and drug traffickers, collecting taxes from the farmers and pay-offs from the traffickers for transporting the drugs through insurgent-
controlled areas. They also demand large payments to the group’s exiled leadership. Generally, the fund-raising mechanism works in the following way: 1. Taliban commanders charge poppy farmers a 10% tax, called an ushr, on
the product at the farm gate. 2. Taliban fighters augment their pay by working in the poppy fields during harvest. 3. Small traders, who collect opium paste from the farmers, pay the Taliban a tax, and truckers pay them a transit
tariff for each kilo of opium paste or heroin smuggled out of the country. 4. The Taliban is paid for protecting the labs where the paste is turned into heroin (Taliban military investments are the highest in areas with laboratiries24).
5. Finally, the biggest source of drug money for the Taliban is the regular payment made by large drug trafficking organisations to the Quetta shura, the governing body of the Taliban whose leaders allegedly live in Quetta,
Pakistan25.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime explains that Afghanistan accounts for 90% of
global opium production. Of that, the UN furthers that the Taliban controls about 85%
of that opium cultivation, concluding that half of their income came from these drugs.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2017. https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/1.2_The_global_heroin_market.pdf

The supply source for this huge underground economy is now concentrated in three areas: Afghanistan, South-East Asia (mostly Myanmar) and Latin America (Mexico and Colombia). Together, they supply nearly all the world’s
illicit opium and heroin, but Afghanistan stands out among this group, accounting for around 90% of global illicit opium production in recent years. By itself, Afghanistan provides 85% of the estimated global heroin and morphine
supply, a near monopoly. In a 2009 Political Declaration reviewing drug control achievements over the previous decade, UN Member States recognized that ‘the supply of opiates originating in Afghanistan continues to pose serious
challenges to the international community.’ On that occasion, Member States also decided to redouble their efforts and to obtain decisive results against illicit supply and demand by 2019. Obtaining such results will require clear
improvements in the efficacy of the response provided so far by the international community. A first obstacle stands in the way of designing a reinvigorated strategy. Our understanding of the transnational illicit opiate economy, as
well as of its links with other socioeconomic and political issues, remains fragmented and relatively superficial. Designing the international response that would solve this decades-old problem within the next 10 years thus requires
a particular effort to fill knowledge gaps.

https://www.unodc.org/wdr2017/field/WDR_2017_presentation_lauch_version.pdf

Taliban’s involvement in the drug trade: 26-85% of area under opium poppy cultivation under some influence of Taliban, $150 million in tax income from the opiate trade (2016), half of Taliban’s income is generated from
drugs

That’s why Alfred McCoy of the Guardian concludes that the key reason the US
couldn’t stop the Taliban was their opium profits.
Alfred W McCoy, 1-9-2018, "How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan," Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-
us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan

In the American failure lies a paradox: Washington’s massive military juggernaut has been stopped in its steel tracks by a small pink flower – the opium poppy. Throughout its three decades in
Afghanistan, Washington’s military operations have succeeded only when they fit reasonably comfortably into central Asia’s illicit traffic in opium – and suffered when they failed to
complement it. It was during the cold war that the US first intervened in Afghanistan, backing Muslim militants who were fighting to expel the Soviet Red Army. In December 1979, the Soviets
occupied Kabul in order to shore up their failing client regime; Washington, still wounded by the fall of Saigon four years earlier, decided to give Moscow its “own Vietnam” by backing the
Islamic resistance. For the next 10 years, the CIA would provide the mujahideen guerrillas with an estimated $3bn in arms. These funds, along with an expanding opium harvest, would sustain
the Afghan resistance for the decade it would take to force a Soviet withdrawal. One reason the US strategy succeeded was that the surrogate war launched by the CIA did not disrupt the way
its Afghan allies used the country’s swelling drug traffic to sustain their decade-long struggle. Despite almost continuous combat since the invasion of October 2001, pacification efforts have
failed to curtail the Taliban insurgency, largely because the US simply could not control the swelling surplus from the country’s heroin trade. Its opium production surged from around 180
tonnes in 2001 to more than 3,000 tonnes a year after the invasion, and to more than 8,000 by 2007. Every spring, the opium harvest fills the Taliban’s coffers once again, funding wages for a
new crop of guerrilla fighters.

AUMF strikes are key to fighting this. Helene Cooper of the New York Times writes
that the US has begun attacking the Taliban’s opium revenue. The US has conducted
strikes against drug labs and headquarters in order to destroy the Taliban’s share of
the opium trade.
Helene Cooper, 11-20-2017, "U.S. Airstrikes in Afghanistan Take Aim at Taliban Opium Labs," New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/world/asia/airstrikes-taliban-opium.html

WASHINGTON — American and Afghan warplanes conducted a series of strikes on Sunday night at what American officials said were Taliban drug depots, as part of what is expected to be a sustained campaign targeting the
group’s $200 million-a-year opium trade. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of the United States operations in Afghanistan, said that B-52 bombers and F-22 warplanes took part in the strikes, the first such attacks under
new authorities granted by President Trump to officials conducting the war in Afghanistan. “Heroin’s become a global issue,” General Nicholson told reporters on Monday during a teleconference news briefing from Afghanistan.
“These criminals living in Afghanistan who are closely linked to the Taliban are responsible for 85 percent of the world’s opium.” He said that the campaign against Taliban drug labs, which he said numbered about 400 to 500
across the country, would continue into the foreseeable future. The United States alone spends more than $8 billion to fight the drug trade. Regional experts suggest that the campaign is necessary, as the drug trade, estimated to
make up at least 60 percent of the Taliban’s income, has helped sustain the war. The Taliban have recently turned to refining heroin from the country’s vast poppy production, which greatly increases their profits. For years,
most of the harvest was smuggled out in the form of bulky opium syrup that was refined in other countries. But officials say that now, at least half of Afghan opium is processed in the country. General Nicholson characterized the
Taliban as a criminal drug organization masquerading as religious and political leaders. “They fight so that they can keep profiting from narcotics trade and other criminal activities,” he said during a separate news conference on
Monday in Kabul with the Afghan Army chief of staff. There are 13 major drug trafficking organizations in Afghanistan, General Nicholson said, seven of which are in Helmand Province, a stronghold for the militants. The Taliban
used to prohibit poppy cultivation when they governed the country in the 1990s. But since they were toppled in 2001, and later became an insurgent group, mounting a war against the Afghanistan government and its American
sponsors, the Taliban have increasingly come to depend on the opium trade for funds. In Afghanistan, the opium economy almost doubled in 2016, to about $3 billion, and amounted to around 16 percent of the country’s gross
domestic product, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The increase in processing means that the Taliban have been able to take a greater share of the $60 billion that the global trade in the Afghan opium
crop is estimated to be worth. Mr. Trump had put little emphasis on the opium trade in his new strategy toward Afghanistan, announced in August. But General Nicholson said on Monday that the American military would support
its Afghan partners in a sustained effort against the labs that have proliferated. Still, the airstrikes on Sunday hit only 10 of the labs, General Nicholson said, signaling what could become a prolonged campaign. “The new
authorities” granted by Mr. Trump in August “allow me to go after revenue streams of the enemy,” General Nicholson said. “These strikes required mapping” of the Taliban’s drug depots and revenue infrastructure, he said, “in
ways that we have not done before.”

American University explains that the power to conduct these opium strikes has
specifically been vested in the president by the AUMF.
American University National Security Law Brief, 2-28-2018, "Attacking Opium Processing Labs in Afghanistan: Cutting a vital source of funding for terrorism," National Security Law Brief,
http://nationalsecuritylawbrief.com/2018/02/28/attacking-opium-processing-labs-in-afghanistan

The Trump Administration has referred to the War Powers Resolution to establish that the President has the authority and has provided the necessary notice in order to conduct air/drone strikes. Prior to these operations, the
Trump Administration provided notification of the plans and their correlation to national security. The President has most recently affirmed his authority and actions on December 11, 2017, in a letter to Congress. While there may
be policy concerns about the use of unmanned drones, the powers are vested in the President with the constraints provided by The War Powers Resolution of 1973. As these drone attacks are aimed at facilities run by the Taliban,
the power can be vested in the President through the 2001 Authorization for Military Use. In this joint resolution, Congress granted the President with the power necessary to combat those who attacked the United States on
September 11, 2001, as well as “any associated forces.” This provides the President with an additional authority for these air/drone strikes.

That’s why Eric Schmitt of the New York Times writes in 2017 that the updated rules
that let the president attack the opium trade were covered by the AUMF.
Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt, 9-21-2017, "Trump Poised to Drop Some Limits on Drone Strikes and Commando Raids," New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/us/politics/trump-drone-strikes-commando-raids-
rules.html?_r=2

“The Obama administration’s policy guidance on the use of lethal force was a positive step but fell far short on human rights protections,” he said. “Any decision to weaken those standards would be a grave mistake.” The updated
rules would continue to limit such strikes to members of groups that the executive branch has deemed to be covered by the aging congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11
attacks, including Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and their associated forces. Earlier this year, Mr. Trump agreed to a Pentagon request to exempt large swaths of Yemen and Somalia from the 2013 rules by declaring them to be
“areas of active hostilities,” temporarily bringing them under less restrictive war-zone rules. However, the head of the military’s Africa Command, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, decided on his own to keep the targeting limit of near-
certainty that no civilians would die for strikes in Somalia.

These strikes are the key way to cut off the Taliban’s funding. CBS News reports in
2018 that these US strikes have already removed $30 million worth of Taliban
revenue.
CBS News, 2-6-2018, "U.S. unleashes 4 days of intense "precision" bombing on Taliban," CBS, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-taliban-us-airstrikes-precision-guided-munitions-b-52/

U.S. aircraft have also begun striking opium labs, which are believed to be one of the Taliban's most valuable sources of revenue. The U.S. military's statement released Tuesday noted that strikes also continue in Helmand
province, "to degrade Taliban revenue sources and safe havens." The military said the airstrikes, in combination with Afghan forces conducting ground operations, "have resulted in the removal of more than $30 million of Taliban
revenue since the campaign began in November, 2017."
 Impact x is by responding to fourth generation warfare.
Professor John Ferejohn of Stanford explains that modern circumstances of
emergency are quite different, since today, the threats to safety can occur anywhere
and are difficult to definitively stop.
Ferejohn, 2004 [John, Professor of Political Science at Stanford, “The Law of the exception: A typology of emergency powers.”
file:///C:/Users/ndy15/OneDrive/Desktop/pdfs/compare/The%20law%20of%20the%20exception%20A%20typology%20of%20emergency%20powers.pdf

Modern circumstances of emergency are very much different from those faced by Rome, and this seems especially true after the events of September 11. We are faced, nowadays, with serious threats to the public safety that
can occur anywhere and that cannot terminate definitively.46 International terrorism represents a form of emergency so unlike any Roman circumstance that it is necessary to reexamine the Roman model to see if it retains
lessons for how a democratic political system should be organized. If we think that the capacity to deal effectively with emergencies is a precondition for republican government, then it is necessary to ask how emergency powers
can be controlled in modern circumstances. There are at least two characteristic features of the problem of emergencies in modern times; first, as mentioned above, contemporary emergencies cannot easily be limited in time or
space. This raises the specter of needing a permanent emergency regime and, in such a circumstance, the Roman practice of either being in a state of emergency or not may be too rigid. We may need to develop an emergency
regime that operates alongside the normal regime. That is, it may be necessary to create legal boundaries around emergencies to substitute for the geographic and temporal ones that no longer exist. Second, it is no longer clear
prior to an emergency what powers are needed to cope with it. The Romans simply gave the dictator absolute power for a certain period of time to solve the problem. We may not need to or wish to go that far. We may insist,
indeed, that the emergency legal system actually be a kind of legal system in which there are rules, rights, and procedures, however limited these may be in its operation.

The National Commission on Terrorism explains that international terrorism seeks to

inflict casualties both overseas and in America, they’re less dependent on state
sponsorship, and they’re now forming loose, transnational associations.
National Commission on Terrorism, 2000, "Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism," Federation of American Scientists, https://fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html

International terrorism poses an increasingly dangerous and difficult threat to America. This was underscored by the December 1999 arrests in Jordan and at the U.S./Canadian border of foreign nationals who were allegedly
planning to attack crowded millenium celebrations. Today's terrorists seek to inflict mass casualties, and they are attempting to do so both overseas and on American soil. They are less dependent on state sponsorship and are,
instead, forming loose, transnational affiliations based on religious or ideological affinity and a common hatred of the United States. This makes terrorist attacks more difficult to detect and prevent. Countering the growing
danger of the terrorist threat requires significantly stepping up U.S. efforts. The government must immediately take steps to reinvigorate the collection of intelligence about terrorists' plans, use all available legal avenues to
disrupt and prosecute terrorist activities and private sources of support, convince other nations to cease all support for terrorists, and ensure that federal, state, and local officials are prepared for attacks that may result in mass
casualties. The Commission has made a number of recommendations to accomplish these objectives:

Jason Vest of the Atlantic explains that this new warfare is called “fourth-generation
warfare,” used by organizations such as al-Qaeda. He concludes that the US will
increasingly face this fourth-generation warfare in coming years.
Jason Vest, 12-2001, "Fourth-generation Warfare," Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/fourth-generation-warfare/302368/

For all the tactical twists and turns in U.S. military planning during and since the Cold War, the basic strategic template has remained more or less the same. To simplify mightily, the emphasis has been on a doctrine of attrition and
theater warfare against large, identifiable foes with professional standing armies. This strategy has gone hand in hand with an emphasis on costly high-tech weapons systems designed to project force from a distance. Some of
these weapons systems are dubious, and the procurement system as a whole is characterized by cronyism, turf battles, and waste. To be sure, not everything about the traditional outlook is bad, and the American military is in
important respects without parallel. It is capable of a crushing global reach, which in certain circumstances can destroy opposing forces with limited risk. But the U.S. military also has trouble reacting quickly, and it has tended to
think far more about the kinds of battles we won't be fighting than about the real-world conflicts we're about to be embroiled in. The terrorist attacks on the United States last September, orchestrated by the Osama bin Laden
organization, have now placed the issue of the military's orientation plainly in the public view. In one corner stand advocates for something along the lines of the status quo (whatever they may now say about the need for
"flexibility"). In the opposing corner are champions of the late John Boyd, a colonel in the Air Force and an innovative theorist who considered that large, expensive weapons systems that took forever to produce were as much of
an enemy as hostile foreign powers. A student of Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz, Boyd advocated reforms—many of which have been successfully adopted by the Marine Corps but have met with resistance elsewhere, particularly in the
Army—that stressed a number of interrelated elements. Chief among them: adaptability and agility as the driving forces of combat; weapons that are dependable, simple, and cheap; and decentralization of command and
communications, so that fighting units aren't at the mercy of layers of decision-makers. The inheritor of Boyd's mantle is a Pentagon weapons analyst named Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney, who has spent the past two decades
arguing that static thinking, poor financial oversight, weapons-procurement bloat, and a personnel system that accentuates careerism over training have undermined America's war-fighting readiness. (For anyone interested in
these topics, Spinney's Web site, Defense and the National Interest—www.d-n-i.net—is indispensable.) As Spinney sees it, the September 11 attacks call attention to something that a number of military reformers have been
warning about for years: the advent of "fourth-generation warfare," and the fact that the U.S. military isn't ready for it. As Spinney observed on his Web site recently, the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center have
"dispelled forever the notion that 4GW is just 'terrorism' or something that happens only in poverty-stricken Third World countries." In the Boydian view, first-generation warfare was defined by close-order formations armed
with guns to repel sword-and-bayonet cavalry and infantry, something the young Napoleon perfected. Second-generation warfare's winners were those who had the most, or the best-managed, firepower, enabling their forces
to win through attrition—an approach mastered by the Prussian army. Third-generation warfare saw second-generation armies being agitated by decentralized attacks that, though brilliant, ultimately failed by virtue of an
opponent's ability to wear the attacker down. An example would be the Ludendorff offensives of 1918, when an initially successful German drive against the Allies ultimately stalled. In their essay "Why It Is Time to Adapt to
Changing Conditions," which is included in the recent anthology Spirit, Blood and Treasure: The American Cost of Battle in the 21st Century, Spinney, Army Major Donald Vandergriff, and Marine Lieutenant Colonel John Sayen
observe that even though the Cold War is over, American military doctrine is still firmly rooted in second-generation thinking, which better serves a largely politicized high command, Congress, and defense contractors than it does
national security. In their view, the Clinton and Bush Administrations and the military establishment have been keeping alive defense projects that might have had some utility in a bygone era, while paying only lip service to
doctrine and weapons for fourth-generation warfare. Viewed in the context of military history, fourth-generation warfare is highly irregular. "Asymmetric" operations—in which a vast mismatch exists between the resources
and philosophies of the combatants, and in which the emphasis is on bypassing an opposing military force and striking directly at cultural, political, or population targets—are a defining characteristic of fourth-generation warfare.
The United States will face decentralized, non-state actors (perhaps supported by a rogue nation or two) who understand just how big an impact attacks on markets, communications, and cultural icons can have on the
American psyche. Spinney and his co-authors write, of the sorts of enemies that confront us in fourth-generation warfare, They usually present few, if any, important targets vulnerable to conventional attack, and their followers
are usually much more willing to fight and die for their causes. They seldom wear uniforms and may be difficult to distinguish from the general population. They are also far less hampered by convention and more likely to seek
new and innovative means to achieve their objectives. An enemy who employs 4GW tactics views whatever action he takes as one prong of a sustained campaign in the ser-vice of a political objective (and a political objective,
despite all the focus on the bin Laden organization's religious zeal, is something bin Laden has). Contrary to advocates of standard U.S. military thinking, American proponents of 4GW see the role of the armed forces when
confronted with this kind of situation as crucial but also of limited prominence—the military mission is tied closely to diplomatic, political, and economic initiatives that focus on eroding the enemy's popular support. "Perhaps
most odd of all," Spinney has written on his Web site, "being seen as 'too successful' militarily may create a backlash, making the opponent's other elements of 4GW more effective." As Spinney, Vandergriff, and Sayen observe,
ever since the end of the Cold War the Pentagon has lagged in developing the correct military response to 4GW—a response that calls for reliance on smaller units versed in maneuver warfare. This kind of fighting eschews heavy
firepower, attrition, and long-range, high-altitude bombardment. It favors joint-service operations and close-quarters combat involving small, fast-moving units with lighter equipment.
To handle this fourth-generation warfare, the AUMF is necessary. Zheyao Li of
Georgetown explains that during this era of fourth-generation warfare, 18th-century
provisions of power are inapplicable. He continues that slowing down decision-making
in the era of fourth-generation warfare proves fatal. That’s why he concludes that in
order to properly combat fourth-generation threats, the President must be able to
take action even without Congressional authorization.
Zheyao Li, 2010, " War Powers for the Fourth Generation: Constitutional Interpretation in the Age of Asymmetric Warfare," Georgetown,
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=42207310300812509010811909106800208805001305501901905411302508812311109109812411808902600602404002805601607510411901207011311706104305904402806909
8103100096107116015025022043091071002001093111115083078080002081096072075079077115120091118125026013022074&EXT=pdf

By now it should be clear just how different this conflict against the extremist terrorists is from the type of warfare that occupied the minds of the Framers at the time of the Founding. Rather than maintaining the geographical
and political isolation desired by the Framers for the new country, today's United States is an international power targeted by individuals and groups that will not rest until seeing her demise. The Global War on Terrorism is not
truly a war within the Framers' eighteenth-century conception of the term, and the normal constitutional provisions regulating the division of war powers between Congress and the President do not apply. Instead, this "war"
is a struggle for survival and dominance against forces that threaten to destroy the United States and her allies, and the fourth-generational nature of the conflict, highlighted by an indiscernible distinction between wartime and
peacetime, necessitates an evolution of America's traditional constitutional warmaking scheme. As first illustrated by the military strategist Colonel John Boyd, constitutional decision-making in the realm of war powers in the
fourth generation should [*399] consider the implications of the OODA Loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. n144 In the era of fourth-generational warfare, quick reactions, proceeding through the OODA Loop rapidly, and
disrupting the enemy's OODA loop are the keys to victory. "In order to win," Colonel Boyd suggested, "we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries." n145 In the words of Professor Creveld, "[b]oth
organizationally and in terms of the equipment at their disposal, the armed forces of the world will have to adjust themselves to this situation by changing their doctrine, doing away with much of their heavy equipment and
becoming more like police." n146 Unfortunately, the existing constitutional understanding, which diffuses war power between two branches of government, necessarily (by the Framers' design) slows down decision-making.
[*400] In circumstances where war is undesirable (which is, admittedly, most of the time, especially against other nation-states), the deliberativeness of the existing decision-making process is a positive attribute. In America's
current situation, however, in the midst of the conflict with al-Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations, the existing process of constitutional decision-making in warfare may prove a fatal hindrance to achieving the
initiative necessary for victory. As a slow-acting, deliberative body, Congress does not have the ability to adequately deal with fast-emerging situations in fourth-generational warfare. Thus, in order to combat transnational
threats such as al-Qaeda, the executive branch must have the ability to operate by taking offensive military action even without congressional authorization , because only the executive branch is capable of the swift decision-
making and action necessary to prevail in fourth-generational conflicts against fourth-generational opponents.
Other stuff
 Our framework is comparative worlds.
Daniela Pisoiu of Critical Studies on Terrorism writes in 2015 that due to the very
complex problem of terrorism, when you compare just the before and after, there are
any number of external events that influence the after. Looking at a before-after of
counterterrorism can’t account for those external events causing the effects. That’s
why she concludes that it’s impossible to prove causation if you only look to the
before and after.
Eric van Um and Daniela Pisoiu, 2015, "Dealing with uncertainty: the illusion of knowledge in the study of counterterrorism effectiveness," Critical Studies on Terrorism,
http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/contentgroups/center_terrorism/PSY729_.pdf

The previous section proposed a conceptualization of effectiveness which can help us grasp existing research in a more systematic way and especially aims for more accurate and comparable measurement. Yet, limits remain with
regard to the reliability of our knowledge on “what works” in CT policy. A major limitation is the “attribution problem,” which basically refers to the difficulty in pointing out whether certain effects are due to one or more CT
policies, other policies or completely exogenous factors. Before–after comparisons most clearly illustrate the limits of establishing causal links and should be considered with caution if they aim to link the destruction of facilities or
the killing of (suspected) terrorists (outcome) to a shift in the patterns of terrorist violence (impact) (see, e.g., Collins 2004; Frisch 2006; Malvesti 2002; Prunckun and Mohr 1997; Wilner 2010). It remains difficult, and often even
impossible, to derive any causal interpretations from such correlations. In other words, whether or not certain measures indeed cause a decrease or even cessation of terrorist activity is an issue that CT effectiveness research
can only address with a limited amount of certainty. In most cases, the effect of a policy measure remains probabilistic, since the actual reason for an observed effect may be a number of other factors and not the actual CT
measure (cf. Perl 2007; Probst 2005; Spencer 2006; Stohl 2006; Van Dongen 2009). Wilner (2010), for example, studied certain indicators of CT effectiveness before and after targeted assassinations in Afghanistan had taken place,
including the overall level of terrorist attacks, the rate of failures and the sophistication of attacks. But he ignored that other policies had been applied at the same time. In reality, many countries have employed a variety of CT
measures, all with the ultimate aim to eradicate terrorist violence. Israel has, for example, employed a number of different policies, including roadblocks, raids into Palestinian cities and the separation wall (Zussman and Zussman
2006, 193). Beyond that, changes in the patterns of terrorist violence may not be due to policies after all. A reduction in terrorism may as likely be the result of terror groups’ strategic thinking to reallocate resources for the
preparation of a more elaborated attack or to other causes such as internal rivalry within a terror group (Bonner 1992, 200; Miller 2007, 337; Perl 2007, 1; Spencer 2006, 185). Several solutions to overcome the attribution
problem are conceivable and have been offered, but none of them has yet been satisfactory. This means that we can presently speak only in plausibility terms when referring to the effects of various measures. First, well-
established models of causality which convincingly link cause and effects of measures would be helpful in supporting verified correlations; but we often do not have such models available. Consider again the example of targeted
killings which may, on the one hand, interfere with the operational abilities of terrorist groups and thereby reduce the number of terrorist attacks. The killing of (alleged) terrorists and other measures such as preventive arrests are
likely to diminish terrorists’ resources and may also lead to fewer incidents of attacks. However, killing militants and uninvolved civilians is, on the other hand, likely to intensify opposition to aggressive policies and increase the
number of those committed to the fight, which in turn would enlarge the reservoir of terrorist recruits. In the end, assassinating members of terrorist groups may trigger revenge and ultimately increase the level of terrorism. Both
are possible and cannot be derived from established theoretical frameworks. As Jaeger and Paserman (2009, 320) conclude, “All of these factors suggest that whether targeted killings and suicide attacks raise or lower the level of
violence is ultimately an empirical question.” Other measures have more clearly been related to a reduction in terrorist levels, even if uncertainty remains in this regard. For instance, an established correlation between
development aid and reduction of terrorist incidents would only allow for a causal relationship to be established if economic underdevelopment had previously been identified as a root cause of terrorist violence. However, this
relationship has not been proven to date. Similarly, as Brzoska (2011) concludes, the causal link between terrorists’ financing and the number or intensity of terrorist attacks on which policies of counterterrorist financing ultimately
rest lacks empirical validity and is not based on unambiguous assumptions. This implies that correlations established in this area do not necessarily prove a causal link. These examples point to a central problem underlying efforts
to establish causality in CT research: the effectiveness of CT is largely an empirical question and therefore hardly one that can be dealt with from an established theoretical standpoint, as chains of causality have not been well
established. But through this, problems of attribution remain central.

However, Colin Tudge of the New Statesman continues in 2004 that the best way to
see the effects of counterterrorism policy is to look at two worlds – one with the
policy and one without it. He concludes that looking at a world with and without is the
only way to truly establish causality.
Colin Tudge, 4-12-2004, "When men have lost their reason," New Statesman, https://www.newstatesman.com/node/194998

The idea that terrorism can be "defeated" by killing terrorists reveals a truly frightening poverty of thought. As a scientist would say, the "model" is inappropriate. It was possible to eliminate smallpox because smallpox was caused
by a finite number of viruses; and by depriving the viruses of their hosts, through vaccination, the entire (wild) infection was wiped out. But terrorists are not discrete entities. They are human beings who, for some reason, adopt
the terrorist mode. In principle, let alone in practice, no elimination is possible (short of eliminating the entire human species). All one can hope for is to create conditions in which people are less likely to opt for the terrorist mode.
But let's apply some science to the question of whether this "war" is working or not. The appropriate method is the "null hypothesis". The null hypothesis would acknowledge that terrorism tends to happen in waves - a lot in
some decades or centuries and less frequently in others. But it would posit that, within any one wave, terrorist acts occur randomly and that whatever governments do to reduce their frequency makes not the slightest
difference. The onus then falls on those who want to argue differently to prove their case. In fact, the case against the null hypothesis is very difficult to make, because there can be no proper "controls" - which science also
insists upon wherever this is possible. Truly to abnegate the null hypothesis you would need to set up two worlds, one in which nothing was done about terrorism and one in which "war" was declared, and see which version
suffered more. Still, the null hypothesis enables us to think more clearly about the "war" and whether it is working. For the null hypothesis predicts that within any one wave of terrorism, the particular terrorist acts occur at
random intervals, irrespective of what is done to stop them. Random events can produce "clustering": two or three outbreaks on the trot, followed by, say, a six-month lapse. With such a pattern, governments which claim to be
winning the war can indulge in wishful thinking and wondrous self-publicity. During the (random) periods of quiet they can claim that the "war" is being won. When the outbreaks begin again they can use this as an excuse to
"tighten up" their controls still further. Even if we cannot prove that governments do not alter the random pattern (and they cannot prove that they do), the idea that they might not be having any effect at all must be taken
seriously. This may lead to scepticism - but scepticism is better than compliance.

To evaluate this debate, rather than comparing the situation before and after the
AUMF, look to a situation with and without the AUMF, to truly see its effects.
 Presidential power nonunique
Andrew McCarthy of the National Review explains in 2017 that while Congress’s war
powers are geared towards times of peace, the President’s war powers are geared
towards times of conflict. During this time, he explains that the President can take any
necessary military action, without any authorization from Congress.
Andrew C. McCarthy, 7-8-2017, "War Powers and the Constitution in Our Body Politic," National Review, https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/07/war-powers-congress-commander-in-chief-constitution-iraq-libya-syria-aumf-
federalist-society/

That is to say, in Libya, we initiated an unnecessary war without any debate among the people’s representatives, much less any congressional authorization, and the result was a catastrophe: the undoing of a counterterrorism ally
in a dangerous neighborhood, the empowerment of our jihadist enemies, a failed state, and an administration reduced to absurd rationalizations about how its aerial bombing raids on regime targets were somehow not acts of
war. It is tempting on this record to draw the conclusion that modern practice has superseded the Constitution’s separation of war powers and division of war-making authorities between the commander-in-chief and the Congress.
But when we get down to brass tacks, this simply is not true. It is not true for a reason that is often forgotten in our debates about war powers, which are dominated by lawyers. They tend to take place under the auspices of legal
academic institutions or organizations like our host today, my good friends and colleagues of the Federalist Society. The Constitution is basically a political document, not a legal one. The reason is this: We are a body politic, not a
legal community — at least, not in the main. For any free society to flourish, it must of course be undergirded by the rule of law. But the Constitution is basically a political document, not a legal one. It is the assignment and
division of political authority among actors who compete and collude based on the attendant circumstances. This is critical because war is a political exercise — “politics by other means,” as Carl von Clausewitz memorably put it.
There are legal elements to it, but it is basically a political endeavor — the use of government power, in this instance force, against a foreign enemy in order to break the enemy’s will. Though you wouldn’t know it to listen to most
war-powers discussions, there is a limit to how much war can be “judicialized” or subjected to antecedent legal rules and procedures. A state of war, after all, is the antithesis of our domestic peacetime footing. It is the proud boast
of our legal system that we would rather see the guilty go free than have a single person wrongly convicted. Thus, we presume against the government. The accused is presumed to be innocent and has no burden to prove
anything. The government must meet weighty standards of proof to conduct a search, obtain a wiretap, make an arrest, or secure a conviction. Our bottom line, as former Bush-41 attorney general William Barr has observed, is
that we would rather see the government lose — i.e., justice is not the conviction of the guilty; it is a government forced to meet its burden under strict due-process rules. War is entirely different. In war, we don’t want the
government to lose, and we cannot give the enemy the presumption of innocence. In war, it is in the national interest that the government prevail. Yes, our troops are the world’s best trained and most disciplined, and we demand
of them adherence to the laws and customs of civilized warfare. But the highest national interest is to defeat the enemy and to achieve the objective so vital that it was worth going to war over. War is thus a very different
paradigm. Far more than legal niceties, it is driven by the public’s perception of threats to the homeland and to vital American interests. Our division of war powers is a reflection of this political reality. As we discovered painfully
in Vietnam, and to a lesser extent in Iraq, a war effort needs strong political support to be successful in a democracy. If there is not public consensus that our security is at risk, or that high-order American interests are at stake,
support for war at home and in Congress will flag. At that point, we can debate until the end of time whether the use of force was lawful and authorized. The only salient point will be that the public does not regard the war
effort as a necessary sacrifice of blood and treasure — that will be the practical and dispositive test of legitimacy. Our Constitution’s war powers are geared in just this way. The Constitution vests in Congress the power to declare
war. The executive, however, is chiefly tasked with our national defense against foreign threats, and it is for the commander-in-chief to prosecute war. This means that when the United States is under attack, or the real threat
of attack, no authorization from Congress is needed. The president may take whatever military action is necessary to quell the threat. Even under these circumstances, however, congressional authorization is desirable. It
becomes not only desirable but increasingly essential as the immediacy of the threat fades. For congressional endorsement of combat operations not only reflects public support for the war; it further defines the parameters of the
conflict — including, critically, who the enemy is. This is necessary because it delineates the operation of the laws of war, determining who may be regarded as an enemy combatant, subject to lethal force, capture, detention
without trial, and potentially even military commission if provable war crimes have been committed. A congressional authorization controls where and against whom military operations may be conducted. Here is the main point:
The further removed the use of force is from an identifiable threat to vital American interests, the more imperative it is that Congress weighs in, endorses or withholds authorization for combat operations, and use its other
constitutional authorities — particularly, the power of the purse — to ensure that military force is employed only for political ends that are worth fighting for, and that the public will perceive as worth fighting for. Now, it is fair
enough to say that our contemporary practice has not conformed to these constitutional guidelines. As a practical matter, we have permanent military forces and there is no stopping a president from ordering them into battle. As
we’ve noted, President Obama did not seek congressional authorization for the Libya campaign, just as President Clinton did not seek it for the bombings in the Balkans, and President Reagan did not seek it prior to the
invasion of Grenada. After insisting as candidate Trump that Obama needed Congress’s assent to attack regime targets in Syria, President Trump has attacked regime targets in Syria without Congress’s assent. Congress’s war
powers seem not to be much of a hindrance on the executive. Nor does Congress’s power of the purse seem to have much bite. It is simply a political reality — it is common sense — that the American people have a deep
attachment to their sons and daughters in harm’s way, regardless of their commitment, or lack of commitment, to a war and its objectives. Congress may disapprove of a unilateral presidential use of force; but unless the public is
not merely indifferent but deeply opposed to American participation in a conflict, lawmakers will be very leery of being seen as cutting off support for the troops. So here is the dynamic: The president has a relatively free hand,
and Congress abdicates its responsibilities — content to wave the pom-poms when things go well, and to excoriate the incumbent administration, but not cut off funding, when the going gets tough.

That’s why Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress explains in 2017 that
Congress uses the AUMF as a scapegoat, attacking it instead of the action taken. He
continues that rather than questioning the action, Congress has only been looking at
the authorization. Since he continues that this dynamic just entrenches the the fight,
Gude concludes that the AUMF is just an excuse that lawmakers use to avoid the more
important issue of presidential power.
Ken Gude, 10-30-2017, "It’s About the Wars and Trump—Not the AUMF," Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2017/10/30/441797/its-about-the-wars-and-trump-not-the-aumf/

The tragic loss of four U.S. Army Green Berets* in an ambush in Niger has sparked renewed attention on the scope of the multiple ongoing wars against terrorist groups. Debate has centered on the source of legal authority for
those wars, the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). This Monday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on this authorization. However, as strange as it is to say, Congressional focus on
this 16-year-old law is premature at this stage in the Trump administration. Instead, what is urgently needed is a strategic assessment of the wars themselves and clear-eyed consideration of President Donald Trump’s
recklessness and unsuitability to be entrusted with broad war powers. As Congress re-engages this debate, its focus must be on the actual wars—not just the legal authority. For too long, any discussion about the fight against
terrorist groups has been confined to a narrow discussion of the legal authorities that support those conflicts. Bizarrely, many have used skepticism about the AUMF as a substitute for a more politically risky path of questioning
the actual wars, leaving any Congressional action to focus on obtaining a new vote on a new or renewed authorization for those wars. However well-intentioned, that dynamic only further entrenches the fight against terrorist
groups a “forever war.” Before acting on any new war authority, Congress must examine the major strategic shifts occurring in the fight against terrorist groups in multiple theaters. The Trump administration has announced that it
is sending more troops to Afghanistan, returning to a war footing against the Taliban. Additionally, the administration is, reportedly, putting CIA paramilitary teams on the ground in kill-or-capture operations against Taliban
militants. The fall of Raqqa marks a turning point in the fight against the Islamic State, as the group has lost most of its territory in Iraq and Syria. Big questions now must be answered about the direction of U.S. military operations
against IS. Yemen remains a debilitating quagmire, as the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed war against Houthi rebels there continues to falter. Leaked emails show even the Saudis admit its military campaign has been a “strategic failure”
and that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has capitalized on the fighting as a means to gain territory and strength. Additionally, U.S. officials have not adequately addressed disturbing reports of torture and abuse of Yemeni
detainees by forces of the United Arab Emirates, sometimes with U.S. personnel present at the same military base. U.S. military engagements are either escalating or beginning across Africa and Asia as well. A U.S. airstrike
reportedly killed 150 al-Shabab militants in March of this year, part of a renewed U.S. push against the group. Violence in Somalia is also escalating following the mid-October truck bombing in Mogadishu that killed more than 300
people. And the Trump administration is reportedly considering changing Obama-era rules governing the use of deadly force outside of traditional war zones that “would ease the way to expanding such gray-zone acts of sporadic
warfare to elsewhere in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.” Congress must assess critical questions about the conflicts, including whether U.S. military engagement is still necessary, and, if so, at what level. Congress must also
examine the Trump administration’s strategy for fighting and winning these conflicts. Layered onto any consideration of providing President Trump with renewed war powers is the growing bipartisan recognition that Trump is unfit
to be commander in chief. The Republican chairman of the committee holding Monday’s hearing, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), said this week that President Trump must be “contained” by his senior staff or else he could “move our
country into a binary choice which could lead to a world war.” Corker added that Trump has “a lack of desire to be competent.” Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), also on the Foreign Relations Committee, warned of the “senseless
danger” of Trump hurling “childish insults” at “a hostile foreign power.” It is simply unheard of to witness senior members of the sitting president’s party deliver such strong verdicts on his obvious unfitness for office. It is even
more remarkable in this era of intense partisan polarization to see this kind of criticism of the commander in chief by members of his own party. This goes beyond “not normal” and into truly uncharted territory. Given this growing
sense of alarm regarding the danger President Trump poses to the security of Americans and the world, it would be fundamentally irresponsible for Congress to provide him with broad war powers that gives him discretion about
when, where, and against whom the United States initiates military action. Congress must tackle these challenges head on. It must debate the actual wars, not just the legal authority that supports them. And it must deal with
the extremely dangerous elephant in the room; that Trump is reckless, incompetent, and so unfit to be commander in chief that he must be contained to limit the threat he poses to the security of the United States and the world.
That is the debate the American people deserve and need before any consideration by Congress of new or renewed authorization for the use of military force and what measures it can take to put meaningful limits on the war
powers of this president.